William Samuel Johnson

William Samuel Johnson (7 October 1727-14 November 1819) was a US Senator from Connecticut from 4 March 1789 to 4 March 1791, preceding Roger Sherman. He was a member of the Federalist Party.

Biography
William Samuel Johnson was born in Stratford, Connecticut in 1727, the son of Columbia University founder and Anglican clergyman Samuel Johnson. He decided to pursue a legal career rather than join the clergy, and he served in the Connecticut legislature in 1761 and 1765, in 1766, and from 1771 to 1775. From 1772 to 1774, he served on the Connecticut Supreme Court. During the American Revolutionary War, Johnson, although an opponent of British taxation, refused to join the Continental Congress due to his desire to reach a compromise. The Patriots removed him from his militia command, and he was briefly arrested after he met with Governor Thomas Gage in person. Once independence was achieved, Johnson took part in Congress from 1785 to 1787, and he was one of the Constitutional Convention delegates in 1787. He supported equal representation for all of the states in the new US Congress, and he fully supported a US Senate based on equal representation and a US House of Representatives based on population. From 1789 to 1791, he served in the Senate as a Federalist Party member. He died in 1819.